1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and a device for determining the gas properties of a combustible gas. The term gas properties is understood to mean the gas composition, the gross heating value, the Wobbe number or Wobbe index, the normal density and the methane number.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The gross heating value can be the molar, mass-based or volume-based gross heating value. The gross heating value of natural gas must be measured when the gas is handed over from the supplier to the customer so that it can be billed. For example, in practice calorimeters or gas chromatographs are used to determine the gross heating value at delivery stations where gas changes hands between two gas supply companies. When gas chromatographs are used, the gas composition is analysed. Once the gas composition has been established, the gross heating value of the combustible gas can be determined on the basis of the gross heating value for the pure substances. When gas meters, particularly turbine meters, are used, the volume flow rate is measured. The volume flow rate must be converted with the aid of the compressibility number from the operating condition to the normal condition. The compressibility number can be calculated with the known SGERG method (ISO 12213) from the gross heating value, normal density and amount of CO2. If the gross heating value is determined using a calorimeter, the normal density and the amount of CO2 must also be measured. If a gas chromatograph is used, the normal density and amount of CO2 can be calculated from the gas composition. The amount of energy is determined as the product of the gross heating value and the standard volume flow rate.
The methods for determining the gross heating value which use calorimeters or gas chromatographs provide very good results but the technology is complicated and this means very high investment and maintenance costs. Such methods are too complicated and have too slow a response time for some industrial applications, in particular for control and regulating purposes.
Correlative methods are also used to determine the gross heating value or the amount of energy when gas transported under high pressure is to be billed. These correlative methods measure several physical or chemical variables and then calculate the gross heating value.
The DE 197 36 528 and the DE 198 08 533 teach correlative methods where the velocity of sound and the dielectric constant of the combustible gas are measured as the input variables. The gross heating value or the gas composition are calculated from these measurement signals.
The velocity of sound may be measured using an ultrasonic flowmeter. Such meters, which are mainly used in the high-pressure sector, are, however, comparatively expensive. More reasonable ultrasonic flowmeters have been developed for the residential sector. However, these meters have so far failed to successfully compete with the conventional diaphragm meter. Therefore, it is by no means certain that ultrasonic flowmeters will continue to be available for the residential sector in future. The dielectric constant must be determined with a measuring instrument developed especially for this purpose. Therefore, the cost of such measuring equipment is relatively high.
It is necessary to know the properties of a gas, in particular the gross heating value or the Wobbe number, for various industrial applications, in particular for control purposes.
The Wobbe number or the Wobbe index is the quotient of the volume-based gross heating value and the square root of the specific gravity of the gas. The Wobbe index is used in industry to control or maintain the amount of energy supplied to gas consumers. A simple correlative method has yet to be developed for such purposes.
The methane number is an important factor for the operation of gas engines. The methane number is a measure of the knock-resistance of gaseous fuels. The methane number expresses the volume percentage of methane in a methane/hydrogen mixture which, in a test engine under standard conditions, has the same tendency to knock as the fuel gas to be examined. If, for example, a natural gas has a methane number of 85, this means that, under certain engine conditions, this natural gas has the same tendency to knock as a mixture of 85% methane and 15% hydrogen. When the methane number is known, appropriate action can be taken to prevent the undesired knocking of gas-driven piston engines.
DE-A-19650302 teaches a method to determine the methane number. The fuel gas is exposed to infrared radiation. The amount of infrared radiation absorbed by the gas mixture is measured using a radiation detector and the methane number of the fuel gas determined therefrom.
The methane number is determined by means of an optical filter which covers a section of the absorption spectrum in which the hydrocarbons contribute to absorption in a ratio which is virtually proportional to the methane number of the natural gas. The method is relatively simple to use because the components of the infrared sensors can be obtained at a reasonable price and the infrared detectors provide an extremely accurate measurement signal and are easy to use in practice.
With the state-of-the-art methods it has so far not been technically possible to determine the gross heating value of natural gases by means of infrared absorption. The different natural gases may also contain nitrogen in addition to hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane, etc. Depending on the absorption spectrum filtered, the infrared signal reacts very sensitively to volume percentages of hydrocarbons and to volume percentages of carbon dioxide but not to volume percentages of nitrogen. This leads to unacceptable measuring inaccuracies since the volume percentage of nitrogen in the natural gas fluctuates greatly and has a great influence on the gross heating value.
Thus an object of the present invention is to provide a method for determining the gas properties of a combustible gas, in particular the gross heating value, the Wobbe number and the methane number, which does not involve burning the gas, is simple to use and offers sufficient accuracy for billing and controlling purposes. A further object of the present invention is to create a simple measuring arrangement which can be used under practical conditions.
With the inventive method to determine the gas properties, at least part of the natural gas is exposed to infrared radiation and the amount absorbed by the natural gas is recorded by an infrared sensor for each of two wave lengths or spectral ranges. In addition, the thermal conductivity is measured using a thermal conductivity sensor.
It is important that the three measurands react very differently to the different components and do not correlate. Thus, the individual components or individual groups of components have each a first degree of influence on the first measurand and a second degree of influence on the second measurand, wherein the first and second wave lengths or spectral ranges are chosen so that the ratio of the first degrees of influence is different to the ratio of the second degrees of influence. E.g. it is possible to determine directly the molar fraction of carbon dioxide in the natural gas using one of the infrared sensors. This sensor operates preferably at a wave length of approx. 4.3 xcexcm. The second infrared sensor, may detect the hydrocarbons in the natural gas. It preferably operates at a wave length of 3.5 xcexcm. The wave length was selected so that the sensor is as sensitive as possible to hydrocarbons, namely particularly to ethane, propane and butane. The thermal conductivity is most sensitive to nitrogen. The gas properties are calculated from the signals of the infrared sensors, i.e. the two measured values for the percentage absorbed by the natural gas, and from the signal from the thermal conductivity sensor.
It has proven that the combination of the two signals from the infraered sensors and the signal from the thermal conductivity sonsor provides a very accurate determination of the gas properties for a great variety of natural gas. The inclusion of the signal from the thermal conductivity sensor causes a rapid increase of the accuracy in comparison to a method or apparatus which relies only upon the signals from the infrared sensors.
The advantage of the inventive method is that conventional sensors can be used for the measurements. The sensors are produced in large numbers in series production and are therefore very reasonably priced and reliable. Furthermore, the sensors are very compact so that they can easily be installed in a common housing, for example, a 19xe2x80x3 plug-in unit. As the gas passes directly through the sensors and the sensors have a very small volume, the response time is extremely quick, which is very important above all in the control of combustion processes.
The method described hereinabove covers all the different uses of gas property determination described hereinbefore, i.e. energy measurement (gross heating value, normal density, percentage of CO2) and process control (Wobbe number/methane number) at the same time. The accuracy is comparable with the accuracy of the calorimeters or process gas chromatographs previously used for billing. The method described hereinabove is, however, much cheaper and the maintenance costs are much lower.
In principle, different types of sensors can be used to determine the different measurands. However, each type of sensor provides its own type-specific measurement values. Experiments have shown that a simple gas property correlation can be derived from the sensor signals. In particular two empirical relationships are used to establish the correlation. These two empirical relationships were established using laboratory measurements on methane and a number of natural gases. Firstly, the functional relationship between the gross heating value HCH of the hydrocarbons and the quotient of infrared absorption A and the molar fraction xCH of the hydrocarbons was established.
Furthermore, the thermal conductivity xcexCH of the hydrocarbon gas is described as a function of the quotient of infrared absorption A and the molar fraction xCH of the hydrocarbons. The characteristic curves only have to be established once for a certain sensor type. For any subsequent calibration it is sufficient to randomly check with a pure gas such as methane.
The accuracy of the method can be increased if the amount of infrared radiation absorbed by the combustible gas is determined for an additional wave length of roughly 7.9 xcexcm. At this wave length, the sensor is particularly sensitive to the volume percentage of methane in the combustible gas. Furthermore, with this additional measurement it is possible to set up a redundant system for testing purposes.
The amount of infrared radiation and the thermal conductivity are preferably recorded under reference conditions in a common measurement environment.
The temperature and the pressure are preferably recorded or kept constant in step a) or b).
The invention is further characterised in that the gas properties are determined according to the formulae (6), (3), (1), (7) (8.1-8.9) and (9) in accordance with FIG. 3.
The formulae (3), (4) and (6) contain the coefficients a0, a1, a2 and c0, c1, c2, which are determined only once from the measurements obtained from the process steps a) and b) on reference gases of known gas composition or gas properties.
Normally three or more reference gases are measured for this purpose. The coefficients are then determined by adjusting to the reference gases by minimising the residual sum of squares by linear regression. The basic calibration is performed only once for a piece of equipment. For recalibration purposes it is sufficient to perform a measurement with only one reference gas, e.g. pure methane (one-point calibration). With this one-point calibration only the coefficients a0 and c0 are adjusted.
The invention also covers a method for determining the amount of energy in a combustible gas, in particular natural gas, characterised in that the gross heating value is determined, the combustible gas is passed through a volume flowmeter and the volume flow rate is measured.
The invention further relates to a device to determine the gas properties of a combustible gas, in particular natural gas, characterised in that the natural gas is passed through an arrangement of sensors which mainly consists of a source of radiation for infrared radiation and at least two radiation detectors assigned to the source of radiation as well as a sensor to record the thermal conductivity, and that the signals of the arrangement of sensors are transmitted to an evaluation unit in which the gas properties are determined by means of a correlation.
The invention is explained in more detail in the following with the aid of a preferred embodiment and the attached drawings.